|
Keepers of the Lights
Story ran on: April 1, 1999
From the: DownEast Magazine
Author: Christine Carson
It takes a lot of nerve to call yourself "the world's largest!" anything. But the Lighthouse Depot, located on Route 1 in Wells, not only bills itself as "the world's largest lighthouse store," but has since it opened in 1993. And with good reason.
At first glance, the Lighthouse Depot, which is housed in an old farmstead, does not distinguish itself from other souvenir and gift shops that crowd along this clogged southern stretch of Route 1. To get from the busy parking lot to the store, you have to weave your way past the porch of the main structure, which is festooned with patriotic bunting, and through a maze of lighthouses of various shapes and sizes. Lobster buoys dangle from the long narrow ell that connects the house and barn. Carved salts and sea captains dot the lane. Outside the store, racks, tables, and cabinets display a sample of the lighthouse wares. It feels as though you are walking through a nautical miniature golf course.
It is only when you enter the retail space, however, that you can fully appreciate the substance behind the Lighthouse Depot's claim. The first thing you see is stuff - and lots of it. Merchandise is stacked, piled, draped, and hung on every available surface in the rambling, two-story converted barn. Shoppers jostle around displays and racks. Clerks answer customer questions and ring in sales from a couple to hundreds of dollars. But what really impresses is that every single item in sight is shaped into, depicts, or is connected in some way to lighthouses. The Lighthouse Depot is, in a word, lighthouse-orama.
From the somewhat sublime to the downright ridiculous, the Lighthouse Depot offers a vast array of objets de lighthouse: T-shirts, beach towels, prints, collectibles, soap dispensers, linens, jewelry, shot glasses, bulletin boards, I love lighthouses license plate covers, candles, key chains, needlework kits, travel mugs, neckties, socks, tin boxes, paper weights, bookends, banners, night-lights, replicas that blink with tiny lights, wastebaskets, musical water globes, CD cabinets, gardening gloves, shower curtains, umbrellas, telephone tables, switch plate covers, welcome mats, wooden buckets, lace curtains tatted with lighthouse designs, mailbox flags, golf balls, wind chimes, belt buckles, ironing boards covers, dinnerware, cheese spreaders, cookie stamps, thimble sets, a six-foot ornamental lawn lighthouse, lighthouse-shaped dog biscuits, plush toy lighthouses and, yes, even toilet paper printed with a lighthouse motif.
New items are introduced every year. Many are custom-designed for and exclusive to the Lighthouse Depot and - like the toilet paper - are often generated from patron suggestions. Not all ideas work, however. The store at one time sold lighthouse boxer shorts, but they didn't catch on. Imagine that.
But before you too quickly dismiss this massive collection as tacky and trifling, you should know there is more to the Lighthouse Depot than meets the credit card. The retail store, which stocks the largest selection of lighthouse books and videos anywhere (books are the store's biggest seller), is only part of the mini-empire that started as a small beacon in the eyes of partners Tim Harrison and Kathy Finnegan some ten years ago. The Lighthouse Depot, which staffs fifty-four full-time employees, also serves as headquarters for a thriving mail-order business, a magazine dedicated to lighthouse issues, and a national lighthouse preservation society.
If it takes nerve to call yourself the world's largest something, it takes even greater nerve to base a business on a single-passion. But that's just how this oddball venture took shape. In 1989, Finnegan had the idea that she and Harrison ¾ both of whom shared a love of lighthouses ¾ should travel east from their homes in the Midwest with a highly romantic goal: to touch every lighthouse in Maine.
Harrison now admits they underestimated the scope of their project. "We though we could do it in a couple of weekends," he says smiling. "There are sixty-eight lighthouses in Maine, many of them are on rocks or islands. Most of them are hard to get to. We enlisted lobstermen, we used a helicopter. And our 'couple of weekends' turned into eighteen months. But we did it."
Upon achieving their goal, Harrison and Finnegan co-authored a book about their experience. They self-published 30,000 copies of Lighthouses of Maine and New Hampshire in May of 1991, loaded up their car, and started peddling the book up and down the coast. Most ended up, not in bookstores, but in gas stations, gifts shops, and campgrounds. There, they found a ready market.
The book, which included a subscription card to a yet unpublished newsletter, was a hit. Despite the book's popularity, however, only thirty-four people responded to the solicitation. Checks were returned to the potential subscribers along with a note explaining that due to lack of interest there would be no newsletter.
"All thirty-four of those people wrote back," says Harrison, "encouraging us to go ahead. So we decided to take a chance."
In May of 1992, the first issue of Lighthouse Digest came out, and 20,000 complimentary copies were distributed to tourist destinations all over New England. For the next run, 50,000 copies were published and bundles were sent to every lighthouse group in the U.S., of which there are about 200. These efforts paid off. "We now have 15,000 subscribers in all fifty states, and abroad," says Harrison of Lighthouse Digest, the only monthly magazine devoted to lighthouse awareness. He also notes those first thirty-four people remain subscribers.
The book and magazine were only the beginning. The partners next began to investigate retail possibilities. The timing couldn't have been better, according to Harrison, noting that around 1993, "lighthouses started to catch on." Big companies were manufacturing lighthouse items, and people were buying them. Taking yet another chance, Harrison and Finnegan bought and refurbished the farmhouse on Route 1 in Wells and opened their lighthouse store. They lived there initially, but the operation's success crowded them out.
In that same year, one of their customers, Don Devine, approached them with the idea of a mail-order catalog. Harrison and Finnegan were at first resistant, but Devine persisted. He self-financed market research and presented them with a business plan. In 1994, a new partnership, which included Devine, was formed. "We talked to other catalog companies, and they thought we were crazy," says Harrison, in reference to basing a catalog solely on lighthouses. None the less, in August of 1994, 30,000 copies of the first catalog were published, and orders "poured in."
They continue to do so. The Lighthouse Depot's bustling mail-order division includes a stockroom, a shipping and receiving area, a "command center" (a room of cubicles and phone banks for taking orders), and a warehouse across town. "We're not L.L. Bean," says Harrison. "Yet."
But it is more than commerce that drives this operation. Harrison stresses, "We did not start all this up just to make money. We are firm believers in lighthouses preservation."
As the business evolved and Harrison became more involved with all aspects of lighthouses, it occurred to him that "nothing was being done in New England for preservation." He thought someone should try to band people together who cared about lighthouses. As it turned out, that someone was he.
In 1994, he guided the establishment of the New England Lighthouse Foundation "to encourage the preservation of lighthouses, lightships, and lifesaving station artifacts and documents." Because the foundation was met with such broad support and interest, it was changed to the American Lighthouse Foundation in 1998, in order to expand its programs. To date, this nonprofit, all volunteer organization has been responsible for restoration projects in Massachusetts, Michigan, and Maine; has helped restore grave sites; and has formed fund-raising partnerships with corporate sponsors, such as credit-card giant MBNA. It even managed to get August dedicated as Lighthouse Month in New England. (At the same time, Congress voted to deaccession many of the U.S. lighthouses, turning them over to local care, a historic effort spearheaded in Maine by the Island Institute, based in Rockland.)
Harrison also found preservation meant gathering and managing information. The Lighthouse Depot has developed a national reputation as the definitive resource bank for lighthouse information and claims to have the largest archive of lighthouse history in the country. The store carries every lighthouse book in print. Metal cabinets, stuffed with lighthouse files, line Harrison's office wall. Calls come in almost daily. Harrison says those files provided 80 percent of the content for the PBS series "Legendary Lighthouses," which aired in the fall of 1998 (and was underwritten, in part, by the Lighthouse Depot). Quite clearly, if you know lighthouses, you know the Lighthouse Depot.
Harrison's quest for lighthouse data is ongoing. He says researchers often have to rely on the books that are more lore and legend than fact. He prefers first-hand information. "The problem is people who have this first-hand knowledge are dying off," he explains. "There's a certain urgency to all this."
And that is why he is unapologetic about the commercial end of his venture. "As this business grows, the more we will be able to do," he says. "All this couldn't happen without the store and the catalog. We believe in putting back. We have saved five or six lighthouses. We're creating jobs. We are generating tourism for the state ¾ people actually make pilgrimages to the store. But above all, we're creating awareness of lighthouses. Perhaps we're not personally making as much money as we could or should, but we're making a difference."
Date Entered into online database: March 22, 2001
Permissions: Check with publication or story author for permission to reprint this story. Lighthouse Depot is not responsible for permissions on any story or article that is not published by Lighthouse Depot or Lighthouse Digest.
|
